Bush
Hides Global Warming Evidence
By Chuck Schoffner
28 October, 2004 by the
Associated Press
The
Bush administration is trying to stifle scientific evidence of the dangers
of global warming in an effort to keep the public uninformed, a NASA
scientist said Tuesday night.
"In my more
than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching
the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has
been screened and controlled as it is now," James E. Hansen told
a University of Iowa audience.
Hansen is director
of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and has
twice briefed a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney on global
warming.
Hansen said the
administration wants to hear only scientific results that "fit
predetermined, inflexible positions." Evidence that would raise
concerns about the dangers of climate change is often dismissed as not
being of sufficient interest to the public.
"This, I believe,
is a recipe for environmental disaster."
Hansen said the
scientific community generally agrees that temperatures on Earth are
rising because of the greenhouse effect emissions of carbon dioxide
and other materials into the atmosphere that trap heat.
These rising temperatures,
scientists believe, could cause sea levels to rise and trigger severe
environmental consequences, he said.
Hansen said such
warnings are consistently suppressed, while studies that cast doubt
on such interpretations receive favorable treatment from the administration.
He also said reports
that outline potential dangers of global warming are edited to make
the problem appear less serious. "This process is in direct opposition
to the most fundamental precepts of science," he said.
White House science
adviser John H. Marburger III has denied charges that the administration
refuses to accept the reality of climate change, noting that President
Bush pointed out in a 2001 speech that greenhouse gases have increased
substantially in the past 200 years.
Last December, the
administration said it was planning a five-year program to research
global warming and climate change.
Hansen said he was
speaking as a private citizen, not as a government employee, and paid
his own way for the Iowa appearance. He described himself as moderately
conservative, but said he will vote for John Kerry in the presidential
election.
"He certainly
is not in denial of the existence of climate change problems,"
Hansen said.
© Copyright
2004 Associated Press